I never got around to publishing this last week. I’m working on something about my time in St. Petersburg now, but my feelings are so different from what I wrote last week that I feel this needs to be published…
Shanghai-Tested: My first ‘Chinese’ haircut
The hairstylist put down the bleach and took out a jar of brown dye. That’s when I realized something had gone awry. As part of my recent deep-dive into embracing China local life, I took the plunge and did something I had never done before…
Immigrant Guilt
In the summer, Shanghai smells of ripe and soured lychees, decaying melons, and bodies suffocating in the heat. This summer will be my third in China and mark the beginning of my fourth year living abroad in Shanghai. This July will…
A morning commute in Shanghai
My scooter slips. I skid into a crack on the pavement and veer sharply to the left. The man on a motorbike to my left narrowly avoids me and squeezes past, unfazed. The car behind us screeches to a…
Spanish paella, LobsterFest 2017, and other reasons to celebrate Spring
I had planned to write about how the miserable of the past week, but instead I’m writing about the beautiful. I’m writing about the beautiful, because life in Shanghai has reached peak levels of the exhausting and the absurd, and when things…
The most beautiful things about Florence
I feel like the word breathtaking is overrated. We use it so much that when something truly takes our breath away – and I mean with that sharp intake of breath and an utter loss for words, I completely lack the vocabulary to…
The courage to eat with a spoon
Learning to use chopsticks in China is easy. Learning when not to use them is hard. Dinner in Shanghai – my home for the past two years – is rarely eaten alone. A dinner is the sort of grand occasion…
Leaving WordPress
I’ve done it. I’m self-hosting my blog! This feels like a big step, because Skipping Customs (first called Pasta Republic) is something I started over three years ago and over the three years it’s become a place where I’ve been able to openly…
I got stung by a jellyfish in Malaysia
twelve mai tais Happy Hour is from 11am to 5pm and it just seems irresponsible not to order four at once. Mai Tais in hand, we walk up and down wet sand part of the white beach. We each take…
If I put soy milk into my latte, am I Chinese enough for China?
I’ve been on a huge China kick the last couple of weeks – I’ve finally started getting groceries online from YiHaoDian (an online Wal-Mart/Amazon hybrid where I can buy puppy food, sparkling water, and a Kindle all in one go), ordering lunch…